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[Document H.] 



BY THE SENATE, 

Jr;r, 11, 1861. 
sad, and 1,000 copies ordered to be printed. 

By order, William Kilgodr, Secretary. 




rtE3i=> o:Ei."r 



OF THE 



*Tt. 



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Gommittee on Federal Relations, 



WITH THE REPORT OF THE 



Smt CGfliniHsiDiirrs 



appointed to WAIT OX 



•RESIDENTS LINCOLN AND DAVIS 



BY THE 



GENERAL ASSEMBLY 



FREDERICK: 

B£AL]i U. KICHARDSON, PAINIKK 
1861. A 







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REI^ORT 



OK Tiii: 



COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL RELATIONS. 

To the Honorable, 

The Speaker of the House of Delegates: 

The Committee on Federal Relations, to whom were referred 
the Message and Correspondence of the Governor, the Bill 
calling a Sovereign Convention, &c., &c., ask leave respectfully 
to report as follows: 

The Message of His Excellency, the Governor, demands the 
consideration of the Legislature, from two points of view — first, 
in regard to the state of public affairs which it discloses; and, 
secondly, as to the remedy which it suggests to the people of the 
State for the perilous contingencies which surround them. 

So far as we can ascertain the views of the Governor, from the 
brief presentation of them, which the haste of our meeting had, as 
he states, permitted him to make, it appears that he regards the 
circumstances which have transpired since the attack upon the 
Massachusetts regiment, in Baltimore, on the 19th of April, as 
constituting all the facts to which it is necessary your attention 
should be drawn. Your Committee, of course, recognize the pro- 
priety of avoiding at this moment all unnecessary recurrence to 
discussions which have already been far overstepped by the rapid 
progress of events; but they find it, at the same time, quite im- 
possible to do justice to the questions before them, without a 
irank and explicit reference to at least a portion of the public 
events which had preceded and were so closely connected with the 
occurrences alluded to. 



The President of the United States, by his Proclamation of the 
15th of April, had called upon a portion of the States to place at 
his disposal a body of militia, to the number of seventy-five thou- 
sand men. The Proclamation was directed against the people 
of the newly-formed Southern Confederacy, and its purposes and 
policy were obvious, although its terms were technically shaped 
in conformity with the Act of Congress of 1795. It recited, with 
formal precision, in the language of the Act, "that the laws of 
the United States were opposed, and the execution thereof was 
obstructed," in the seven seceded States, "by combinations too 
powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial pro- 
ceedings, or by the powers vested in the Marshals," and it called 
forth the militia of the other States, in the further language of the 
statute, ''to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to 
be duly executed." In pursuance of another section of the law, 
it then commanded "the insurgents to disperse and retire peace- 
ably to their respective abodes" within twent ^ days. If there is 
any proposition clear beyond dispute, it must be, that if the occa- 
."^ion which authorises the President to call out the militia, under 
the Act of 1795, existed at all, it was declared, by the explicit 
terms of the Proclamation, to exist only in the States of the 
Southern Confederacy, which were therein enumerated. It is 
equally indisputable, as matter of la\v, that the militia, if called 
out lawfully at all, were lawfully empowered to execute the laws 
and suppress unlawful combinations in the seven States named, 
and in none other. Such a conclusion of law is not only obvious 
and unavoidable, as matter of construction, but equally to be in- 
sisted upon as matter of principle and self-protection on the part 
of the people; for the exercise of the military power, in a free 
government, is never to be permitted, except within the limits 
and under the severest restrictions and checks of the law. If a 
President of the United States, under the fraudulent pretence of 
suppressing unlawful combinations in Louisiana and Florida, 
could be permitted to call out troops, to be used for any purpose 
in Maryland or Virginia, no soil of any State would be free from 
invasion, and no right of the citizen anywherii would be secure 
against overthrow. 

It was not, however, because of any apprehension that the 
militia which were called out by the President would be used in 
other than the designated quarters, that the Proclamation created 
an intense and immediate excitement in the Southern and Border 
Slave States. On the contrary, it was the very purpose announced 
by Mr. Lincoln which kindled so intense a llame of resentment 
and resistance. His Proclamation was regarded as a declaration 
of war against the Southern Confederacy — as a deliberate sum- 
mons to the j)eople of the two sections, into which his party and 
its principles had so hopelessly divided the land, to shed each 
other's blood, in wantonness and hate. A scheme so full of wick- 
edness — so utterly subversive of every principle upon which our 



government was founded, and so sure to involve the destruction 
of that government, let the fortune of war be what it might — 
could not but excite almost to frenzy every feeling of those who 
sympathized with the people against whom it was fulminated. 
Independently, loo, of its wantonness and inhumanity, it was felt 
and known to be a gross violation of the Constitution, and with- 
out color of lawful authority. The people of the seceded States, 
whether constitutionally or unconstitutionally, had separated 
themselves from this government, and established a federal gov- 
ernment of their own, with ail the forms of a constitution, and all 
the substantial attributes of actual independence. Through their 
constituted authorities and in their collective capacity, as commu- 
nities, they had withdrawn themselves from the Union — repudia- 
ted its laws and excluded its oilicers, of ail sorts, from the exer- 
cise of all functions and jurisdiction. The United States Gov- 
ernment no longer had amono^ them either courts to issue, or mar- 
shals to execute process. They had substituted their own courts 
and their own processes, to which they yielded cheerfid obedience. 
The authority of the Federal Government was in fact dead within 
their limits. They were in an attitude towards it, not only of in- 
dependence, but of forcible resistance, for they had repelled the 
assertion of its authority over any poition of their soil, and had 
subdued for their own protection, one of its fortifications within 
their borders. The Confederate Government and that of the 
United Slates were, in fine, belligerents, engaged in actual, 
though undeclared war, and with all the rights and responsibili- 
ties which it gives and entails. This last is none the less true, 
because of their being engaged in civil war, for that is like any 
other war, when waged among civilized people. Vattel defines 
the relations which exist in such cases in terms too clear to be 
misunderstood, and loo well recognized to be disputed. 

"A civil war," he says, "breaks the bands of society and gov- 
ernment, or at least suspends their force and effect. It produces 
in the nation two independent parties, who consider each other 
as enemies, and acknowledge no common judge. These two 
parties, therefore, must necessarily be considered as thencefor- 
ward constituting, at least for a time, two separate bodies, two 
distinct societies. Though one of the parties may have been to 
blame in breaking the unity of the Slate and resisting the lawful 
authority, they are not the less divided in fact. Besides, who 
shall judge them? Who shall pronounce on which side the right 
or the wrong lies? On earth they have no common superior. 
They stand, therefore, in precisely the same predicament as two 
nations, who engage in a contest, and being unable to come to 
an agreement, have recourse to arms." (Vattel, Book 3, ch. 18, 
sec. 293.) To attempt to apply, under such circumstances, to a 
belligerent people, an Act of Congress, which was meant as a 
domestic remedy, in aid of civil process and to secure obedience 
to the laws under judicial proceeding — in Stales still recognizing 



the authority of the Union and the jurisdiction of its tribunals — 
was to trifle with the understandings of educated men. To issue 
a proclamation to three millions of free Americans, composing 
seven powerful States, and asserting the sacred and indfeasibie 
right of self-government, with arms in their hands, and *'com- 
mand" them as "insurgents" to '^retire peaceably to their respec- 
tive abodes," like a mob at a street corner, was an absurdity too 
gross to be here respectfully discussed. No government would 
venture to palm such an imposition upon a people, except in the 
well-assured confidence of absolute power. Nay, in the passion- 
ate excitement of the moment, the President forgot even the sug- 
gestions of political decorum, and did not hesitate to transgress 
all possible constitutional limits, and confess a purpose of ani- 
mosity and revenge, by distinctly calling on the people, whom he 
summoned to the field, "to redress wrongs already long enough 
endured," The Proclamation, therefore, meant war, and nothing 
but war. It could signify nothing else, and to attempt to cloak 
its meaning and purpose under the flimsy pretext of "executing 
the laws," and "suppressing unlawful combinations," was but to 
cover up a flagrant usurpation with words. 

Neither the Constitution nor the laws of the United States can 
be tortured into conferring the war-making power upon the Presi- 
dent in any contingency. Where foreign nations are concerned, 
the plain language of the fundamental law entrusts it to Congress 
only. As against the States of the Union, the possibility of such 
a thing is not even contemplated, much less provided for. Like 
parricide at Athens, it was held too heinous and impossible to be 
named, even for the purpose of punishment. As early as the fifth 
day after the meeting of the Convention for the formation of the 
Federal Constitution, "the use of force against a State," by the 
rest of the Union, as contemplated in the plan of Mr. Randolph, 
was denounced by Mr. Madison, and on his motion the resolu- 
tion providing for it was indefinitely postponed by unanimous as- 
sent. Mr, Madison announced it as his deliberate opinion that 
"a union of the States, containing such an ingredient, seemed to 
provide for its own destruction." From that day forward such an 
idea ceased to be a part of the theory of those by whom the Con- 
stitution was framed. When Gen. Hamilton was called to express 
his opinion upon it, he asked, "How can this force be exerted on 
the States collectively? It is impossible; it amounts to a war 
upon the parties. Foreign powers, also, will not be idle specta- 
tors. They will interpose; the confusion will increase, and a dis- 
solution of the Union will ensue," The reasoning was unan- 
swerable, and the Constitution happily was not stained with the 
perilous folly, against which these two great statesmen so ear- 
nestly protested. There was not a discussion in the debates on 
the Federal Constitution, whether in the Convention which framed 
it or the State Conventions which adopted it, that does not con- 
firm this view of its spirit and purpose. The essays of the Fed- 



cralist are pregnant with demonstrations to the same effect, and 
there is no constitutional lawyer who does not know, that the 
whole theory of the Government is to act, through the courts, 
upon individuals, and not through the Army and Navy upon the 
States. The brave and wise men who framed and upheld it, 
would have died in the breach before they would have submitted 
themselves to it upon any other basis. It could never have been 
adopted, it would never have been ratified, upon any other under- 
standing. The States would have endured anarchy, distracted 
counsels, and all the evils of the old Confederation, aggravated 
tenfold, before they would have surrendered themselves to any 
system in which the Federal Government, and least of all, the 
Federal Executive, was clothed with the constitutional power of 
coercing them by force of arms. They entered into a constitu- 
tional Union, depending for its permanence upon the good faith 
and good feeling of its members, and deriving ^its strength from 
their consent only. They did not abandon themselves to the 
bayonets of a military despotism enthroned upon popiilar majori- 
ties. 

But, illegal and unconstitutional as was the war which the 
Proclamation summoned one section of the country to wage 
against the other, the causes and purposes of that war made it 
chiefly obnoxious to the people of Maryland imd of the Slave 
States of the Border. It was a war of propagandism and of sec- 
tional aggression and domination. It was a war of the North 
upon the South. It was a war in which the dominant section 
had seized upon the name and flag, and resources and powers, 
of the General Government, and was abusing them for its own 
ends, and for the permanent establishment ot its dominion over 
the other section. It was a war, to the unholy purposes of which 
the sacred associations and metuories of the Union were prostitu- 
ted, and in which its honored name was taken in vain. It was 
a war waged against a people of our own name and blood, who 
sought peace and kindly relations with us, and who asked only 
to be let alone and to be permitted to govern themselves. It 
could bring no good, for it could end only in the defeat of the 
invaders or the subjugation of the invaded, and in either case the 
Union, which our fathers left to us. must be at an end. Subju- 
gated provinces could not be sister States, and a Federal Gov- 
ernment, professedly Republican, maintaining its authority by 
armies, could not be other than the worst and most unprincipled 
and uncontrollable of despotisms. The South had entrenched 
itself upon the principle of self-government. It had offered to 
negotiate, peaceably and honorably, upon all matters of common 
property and divided interest, claiming only that three millions of 
people had a right to throw off a Government, by which they no 
longer desired to be ruled, and to live under another Government 
of their own choosing. Unless the American Revolution was a 
crime, the Declaration of American Independence a falsehood, 



8 

and every patriot and hero of 1776 a traitor, the South was right Ji'nf^ 
the North was wrong, upon that issue. The people of Maryland, 
therefore, could have but one choice in such a contest, and while 
as devoted to the Union and as loyal to the Constitution as the 
people of any of the thirteen States, who had formed the one 
and pledged themselves to the other, they could not but throw 
the whole weight of their sympathies upon that side to which 
common interests and institutions inclined them, and with which 
they felt that the right and the truth were. Nor was it a matter 
of sympathy merely. The breach of the Constitution involved in 
the coercive policy of the Administration^ was a breach of their 
rights, and not less than unlawful aggression upon the rights of 
the Southern people. It was an overthrow of the principles of 
free government, and could end in nothing but an ignominious 
annihilation of the noble institutions of the Republic. The peo- 
ple of Maryland were summoned to take part, as soldiers, in the 
strife, and as citizens they were asked to contribute their means 
to its piosecution, and were to bear their share of its unconstitu- 
tional burdens; their stake in the struggle, therefore, was one of 
political and individuiil self-preservation. They were bound by 
every principle and pressed forward by every impulse of right and 
self-respect, to make every protest against the wrong to their 
brethren, and the oppression to themselves, which their situation 
and circumstances would permit. To the requisition upon them 
for troops, to take part ujion the side of the Government in such 
strife, their answer, if they could have given it with their own 
voice, would have been an instant and indignant refusal. 

It is deeply to be regretted that the respone of his Excellency, 
the Governor, should have fallen so far short, in this regard, of the 
manly ami patriotic spirit with which the Governors of Virginia 
and North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, threw 
back the insulting proposition of the Administration. Indeed, 
the Committee are unable to determine, from the correspondence 
with which the Governor has furnished the Legislature, whether 
His Excellency does not still contemplate complying with the 
requisition as made. His letter of April 20th, to the Secretary of 
War, is the only one which gives a key to his intentions, and in 
that he merely announces that he thinks it "prudent to decline 
(for the present") — not because of the illegality and wickedness 
of the demand, and the disgrace which the State would incur 
from acceding to it — but on account of the then alleged disorderly 
condition of the militia themselves. Your Committee are not 
prepared to admit the accuracy of the statement made by the Gov- 
nor in the letter referred to, to the effect that "the principal part 
of the organized military forces" of Baltimore took part with the 
"disorderly element" in the affair of the 19th of April. On the 
contrary, tliey have every assurance and every reason to believe 
that the organized military of Baltimore, under the direction of 
the constituted authorities, and in implicit obedience to their 



orders, did all that could have been expected from brave men 
and good citizens to preserve the public tranquility. But whether 
the hasty statement of the Executive be well or ill-founded in that 
particular, the deteraiinatiou of the Stale of Maryland, upon the 
question of furnishing her quota of militia to make war upon the 
Southern Slatt-s, ought not, in the opinion of your Committee, to 
rest a moment longer upon any such collateral and accidental 
issue. It becomes the self respect of the State that she should 
speak out openly and decidedly upon the point, and the question 
should no longer be left dependent upon what may be hereafter 
regarded as "prudent" by the Executive. For this purpose, 
your Committee have prepared and reported a resolution, which 
IS appended to this report, and the adoption of which they re- 
spectfully recommend. 

It is but justice to the Executive of the Stale to observe, in 
this connection, that His Excellency appears to have been misled, 
in his action uj)on the requisition ot the United States Govern- 
ment, by the two letters of the Secretary of War, dated April 17, 
in which that gentleman irjformshim that ''the troops to be raised 
in Maryland will be needed for the defence of the Capital and of 
the public property in that Stale and neighborhood." "There is 
no intention," the Secretary adds, "of removing them beyond 
these points." In conformity with this information, the Procla- 
mation of the Governor — of which he has not furnished a copy to 
the General Assembly, but which is matter of public notoriety — 
informs his fellow-citizens to the same effect, ;ind holds out the 
idea that troops Irom this Stale may be furnished for the purposes 
indicated. Your Committee would be happy to persuade them- 
selves that in suggesting the possibility of its being "prudent," 
at any time, for the Marylarid quota to be fm-nislied to the Gov- 
ernment, His Excellency could only have contemplated their em- 
ployment, in any contingency, for the limited purposes in ques- 
tion. But it does not become the House of Delegates to allow 
themselves to be deceived by any such intimations from the Gov- 
ernment, as those which imposed upon the Governor. I'he Pro- 
clamation of Mr. Ijincoln, under which the troops of ^Maryland 
liave been called into the field, is directed (as has already been 
observed) against the seceded Slates, and none other. The 
militia were summoned to execute the laws and suppress unlaw- 
ful combinations in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, 
Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and not in Maryland or the 
District of Columbia. The very requisition of the Secretary of 
War upon the Governor is in direct and absolute contradiction to 
the assurance contained in his letter. The one asks for troops to 
be used in the South, and not at the Federal Capital; the other 
declares that their employment, at the Federal Capital and not in 
the South, is the only purpose contemplated. 

One of two things, therefore, is perfectly clear. Either the 
Government had called out troops under the pretence of needing 



10 

them for one purpose, while intending to use them for another, 
or it contemplated employing a portion of them at Washington, 
as a guard and a reserve, but in aid, at the same time, of its 
offensive movements to the south of the Potomac. In the one 
case, it can have no claim upon our confidence; in the other, we 
should be false to ourselves and to free institutions, if we were 
to hesitate about refusing it our co-operation. Whatever destiny 
the people of Maryland rnay be able or willing to shape for them- 
selves, now or hereafter, the Committee would be pained to believe 
it possible, that a single citizen of the State could be forced or 
persuaded to take part, directly or indirectly, in the slaughter and 
subjugation of our Southern brethren and the overthrow of Con- 
stitutional Government by usurpation and brute force. If the 
Government desires to put an end to all doubts as to the safely of 
the Capital, it can do so at a word, by putting an end to its own 
purposes of coercing the South. 

What the Committee have already suggested in regard to the 
character and purposes of the conflict, which Mr. Lincoln has 
inaugurated, under the pretence of enforcing the laws, is so mani- 
festly and indisputably corroborated by his course since the Le- 
gislature was convoked, that the Committee cannot discharge 
their duty without alluding to that course in this connection. 
Reference is especially had to the Proclamation of the 3id of May, 
calling out over forty-two thousand additional volunteers, to serve 
in the militia for a period of throe years, and increasing the regu- 
lar force of the United States by an addition of nearly twenty- 
three thousand men to the army, and eighteen thousand seamen 
to the navy. The most unscrupulous advocate of the Adminis- 
tration and its policy would be compelled to shrink from the task 
of pointing out any legal or Constitutional authority of any sort 
tor this unprecedented measure. The right of increasing the army 
and navy is one which belongs exclusively to Congress, and over 
which the President has no more Constitutional control than the 
liumblesl citizen. His right to call out the iLilitia is expressly 
limited by the restriction that their use shall only continue "if 
necessary, until alter the expiration of thirty days after the com- 
mencement of the then next session of Congress." (Act of 
1795, sec. 2.) The Proclamation is therefore without any color 
whatever of right, and is as plain and bald a subversion of the 
letter and spirit of the Constitution and the laws, as was ever 
Hitempted by the military power, in any Government ostensibly 
free. The pretence of "existing exigencies" is but the shape in 
which military revolutions have always begun, since the prestige 
of free institutions has rendered it necessary^ even for usurpers, 
to make a show of apolowy tor overthiowing them. 

If ever a triumphant illustration covdd be given of the wisdom 
of our fathers, in providing by the constitution, that the govern- 
ment should operate upon its individual citizens through the 
laws, and not upon the States by military coercion, it is to be 



11 

found in tlie fact, that the first adminislration daring to depart 
from tills fundamental and consecrated principle, has rushed, in 
the short space of sixty days, into the assertion of absolute con- 
trol over the whole military resources of the country, in open and 
reckless defiance of every leo;al and constitutional restraint. The 
Committee hazard nothing in saying, that th^re is not a citizen 
of Maryland, whatever be his political opinions, who must not 
shudder at the palpable and ominous presence of this usurpation, 
and who does not recognize, tor the first time, in his own ex- 
perience or the history of Maryland, that he is living and moving 
and holding his civil and political rights at the j)leasure of an 
unrestricted military power, and subject to the arbitrary and anti- 
republican caprices of what is entitled "military necessity." For 
any man to be able to persuade himself, under such circumstances, 
that the policy of the administration ever meant peace and not 
W'ar — the "enforcement of the laws," — the "defence of the capi- 
tal" — and not subjugation — requires a peculiarity of mental con- 
struction with which reason is at a loss how to deal. To suppose 
that a blockade of the whole sea coast, from the capes of the 
Chesapeake to the extreme borders of Texas, with a land army 
extraordinary of one hundred and fifty thousand men, and a naval 
increase of eighteen thousand, can be intended only in aid of 
"the or(iinary course of judicial proceedings, or the powers vested 
in the Marshals," and is therefore within the scope of the Presi- 
lient's civil functions, and not of the war-making power, which 
only Congress can exercise, implies a facility of conviction, to 
which nothing can be regarded as impossible. 

The Committee are of course not unacquainted with the fami- 
liar doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court of the United 
States in the case of Martin vs. Mott, (12 Wheaton, 19,) and so 
often cited by those wlio maintained the absolute authority of the 
President over the whole question of calling out the militia. The 
Committee might readily dispose of it if they were willing to 
stand upon the same grounds with the Administration, by apply- 
ing to it the doctrine of the inaugural of Mr, Lincoln, and might in- 
sist upon confining the ruling of the Court to the particular case 
and the individual parties concerned, repudiating its controlling 
authority, upon the one side or the other, on a question of admin- 
istrative government. Believing, however, that the true and 
only "loyalty" of a free people consists in their reverence for 
the laws and constitution, and their obedience to the tribunals by 
which these are expounded, the Committee assume that the peo- 
ple of Maryland will cheerfully bow to whatever the Supreme 
Court has determined, upon the question under discussion, or 
any other. The case of Martin vs. Mott was a controversy be- 
tween a private of militia and one of the United States Marshals, 
who had seized his goods, in enforcement of a fine imposed by 
court-martial, for failure to enter the service upon requisition, 
according to law, during the war of 1812. The jurisdiction oi 



the court-martial, and the authority of the President to issue the 
Proclamation under which the militia were called out to repel 
invasion, were both considered in the case; the question in chief, 
however, of course being the right of the individual citizen to 
judoje, for himself, whether the legal occasion existed, upon which 
ihe President might rightfully summon the citizens to arms. 
This latter was the real and only point in controversy, and the 
Court decided, that under the Act of 1795, it was for the Presi- 
dent, exclusively, to determine whether the exigency contemplated 
by the law had arisen, and that no soldier or officer had any 
choice but to obey. 

The principle of military subordination upon which this adju- 
dication is distinctly placed by the Court, is too obvious to be 
confounded with the recognition of arbitrary and irresponsible 
power, to which the decision is sought to be perverted, by the 
supporters of the existing order of things. To determine that the 
President is the exclusive judge of whether an exigency has 
arisen, in a case to which his discretion is lawfully applicable, is 
one things. To give to him the exclusive and irreversible autho- 
rity to determine, not only the existence of the exigency, but the 
existence of the case in which it may lawfully arise, is quite 
another thing. The first is what the Supreme Court has done, 
the second is what no respectable Court, it is confidently assumed, 
can be persuaded or forced to do, except under the pressure of 
"military necessity." The one gives to the President the exer- 
cise of a discretion, in certain named and ascertained cases. 
The other gives him absolute power in all cases. The one en- 
dows him with a necessary executive function. The other 
makes him supreme over all law, by granting him the exclusive 
control of its a})plication. If the President cannot only invoke 
the military power at his discretion, in cases of invasion, insur- 
rection and resistance to the laws, but can create invasion, insur- 
rection and resistance, by merely proclaiming that they exist, 
whether, in fact, they do so, or not ; there is not a moment of 
his term, at which he cannot constitutionally compass the abso- 
lute subjugation of the people, through the mere official assertion 
of a falsehood. Assume for a moment, for the sake of the argu- 
ment, that the attitude of the United States, is not, in fact or 
law, a case authorizing the President to call out the militia, under 
the act of 1795, is it to be jjretended that he makes it such a 
case simply by calling it such, in a proclamation? Is it to be 
gravely argued, under a constitutional government, that the na- 
tion is bound to acquiesce in it as a fact, against the public 
1,-iiowledge to the contrary, and must accept the war, indorse the 
bloodshed, pour out the treasure, and submit to the usurpation, 
with no other remedy than articles of impeachment, or the chances 
of the next Presidential election ? 

The commonest intelligence — the most superficial acquaintance 
with the scheme and spirit of republican institutions — revolts at 



13 

conclusions so monsfrous. And yet precisely sucli must be the 
conclusions to which any man must yield who supposes the Su- 
preme Court to have decided, as has been pretentied. 'I'hat 
hi^h tribunal never meant to decide, and never did decide, a 
principle so wholly irrational and despotic. It is a disrespect to 
its character to put such a question even in dispute. The way 
in which the States and the people may and ought to deal with 
such a usurpation is a matter apart, but that it does not cease to 
be a usurpation, because of the insertion of a form of words in a 
Proclamation, is a matter which the Committee will not dispar- 
age the manliness and sense of the House by discussing further. 
Indeed, in his letter of May 4tb, 1861, to the United States Minis- 
ter at Paris, which has appeared during the preparation of this 
report, the Secretary of State does not hesitate to throw aside all 
the masks and pretenses of the Proclamation, and to admit that 
it is no longer a simulated question of ''enforcing the laws" and 
"defending the Capital," but a downright case of "civil war" — 
of "open, flagrant, deadly war," which the United States have 
"accepted.'' Such a confession — nay, such a bold and defiant 
annunciation — that the President has assumed upon himself the 
power of peace and war, in glaring and indisputable subversion 
of even the Constitution, leaves to the j)eople of M'.iryland noth- 
ing further to consider, in this connection, but the fact, that they 
are face to face with a military despotism, whose only law is its 
will. 

If the Committee are justified, by what has been said, in their 
view of the constitutional [)osilion of the Federal Government, 
and especially if the missions now made by it, without disguise, 
show but the consummation of an original and persistent illegal 
scheme on the part of the Administration, it follows, as a matter 
of necessity, that the troops called out by the President were and 
are an unauthorized body of men, passing across our territory for 
illegal and unconstitutional purposes, and carrying with them 
none of the constitutional safeguards, which would undoubtedly 
accompany any force of the United States exercising the right of 
transit for lawful and justifiable ends. They were, in fact, not 
United States soldiers, but "Northern troops," as they were pro- 
perly designated by the Governor in his correspondence, and 
"Northern troops," too, whose presence in Maryland, without 
the consent of her constituted authorities, was indubitably an 
aggression upon her dignity, her safety and tranquility. Your 
Committee, of course, admit, without question, that only the 
authorities of the State were competent to deal wuth such a case, 
and that it would only have been dealt with properly, even by 
them, in distinct recognition of the fact, that Maryland is still a 
State of the Union, with all the obligations which that relation 
imposes upon her. 

But they cannot shut their eyes to the other part, equally indis- 
putable, that it was primarily the fault of those who marched tiie 



14 

Massachusetts soldiery through Baltimore, upon an unconstitu- 
tional and illeojal errand, if the popular passions were unfortu- 
nately stimulated by their presence, into a lawless outbreak, too 
sudden and too violent to be lestrained. for the moment, by the 
ordinary appliances ot a free government. The Committee, there- 
fore, cannot but commend the repeated eiforts of the Governor to 
induce the President to forego his purpose of passing troops 
across our soil, both before and after the fatal occurrence of the 
19th of April. They can only regret that the indignant feeling 
manifested by his Excellency in regarti to the misdeeds of the 
"rebellious element" at home, was not testified, with equal vigor 
of remonstrance against the illegality and wrong, involved in the 
proceedings of the Government. 

The events which have occurred since the period referred to, 
the Committee do not feel themselves called upon to discuss in 
any detail. They have taken occasion to allude, in a previous 
report, to the luimiiiating facts which are disclosed by the present 
position of iMaryland. A State of the Union, held lo the obliga- 
tions of that relation, and having never through her constituted 
authorities pretended to repudiate or abjure them, she is treated 
as a conqured enemy. Her soil is occupied; her property and 
that of her citizens are sequestered; her public highways are seized 
and obstructed; her laws are suspended; her capital is converted 
into a military })osl; her Legislature is compelled, in the language 
of her Executive, to consult its "safety" by holding its sessions 
at a distance from her offices and archives; troops are quartered 
around the peaceful homesteads of her people; her citizens are 
subjected to the illegal and arbitrary violence of military arrest 
and confinement; her very freedom, in fine, all that distinguished 
her from a Neapolitan province, before Naples was liberated, is 
under the armed heel of the Government. That such a fate is 
imposed upon her, without constitutional authority; that indeed 
no respect to the Constitution is even pretended in her regard; 
the frank admission of the Federal authorities to the Commis- 
sioners recently accredited to them by this Legislature, renders a 
mortifying and almost intolerable certainty. 

The State of jNbtryland is under military rule. Partly for mili- 
tary convenience, and partly for chasti>-^einent, her free institutions 
have been temporarily suspended by the War Uepartraent, and 
lier name blotted out, for the time, from the list of free govern- 
ments. It is not the desire of the Committee to aggravate by 
comment the humiliation which is inseparable from these facts in 
in their sim|)Iest statement. It is not their disposition to provoke 
a review of the unhapj^y policy, in her own councils, which has 
contributed to plunge tlie State into so hopeless and helpless a 
condition. i'hey wish to deal only with the practical questions 
it suggests for present determination; and this brings them to 
consider the recommendations of the message transmitted by the 
Uovernor. 



15 

The Committee understand His Excellency as recommending, 
in general terms, a policy of peace. So I'ar as that naked proj)o- 
sition goes, they give to it their warmest and heartiest concur- 
rence, but they are not sure that they exactly apprehend the mode 
in which the Governor proposes that the policy he so favors should 
be carried out. His language is as follows: ''!• honestly and most 
earnestly entertain the conviction that the only safety of Mary- 
land lies in preserving a neutral jiosition between our brethren 
of the North and South." He then enters into a consideration 
of the part which Maryland has tnken in the sectional contest 
that has been waged, and adds: "Entertaining these views, I 
cannot counsel Maryland to take sides against the Federal Gov- 
ernment, until it shall commit outrages upon us which would 
justify us in resisting its authority." What class of outrages 
would furnish such justification for resistance he does not an- 
nounce, but proceeds to say: ''As a consequence, I can give no 
other counsel than thai we shall array ourselves] for union and 
peace, and thus preserve our soil from being polluted with the 
blood of brethren. Thus, if war must be between the North and 
the South, we may foice the contending parties to transfer the 
field of battle from our soil, so that our lives and property may 
be secure." 

The Committee confess their difficulty in perceiving how, con- 
sistently with a policy purely pacific, these counsels can possibly 
be made available. No matter how decidedly and enthusiasti- 
cally we "array ourselves for union and peace," it is altogether 
impossible for us to preserve our soil from the pollution of frater- 
nal blood, unless we possess the means and assert the power to 
force back the tide of war, if it comes surging across our borders. 
And that we should consolidate and employ such power, to the 
extent which the exigency may demand, is obviously the counsel 
of the Governor, for he proceeds to tell us, that by the action he 
advises, we may be able, ''if war must be," Xo'-^force the contend- 
ing parties to transfer the field of battle from our soil, so that our 
lives and property may be secure." Surely we cannot "force" 
belligerent armies from our midst, without employing force of our 
own. It is out of the question that we can prevent them from 
making our homes their battle-field, unless we have the strength 
to repel them, and are willing and prepared to use it. 

No peaceful " array" whatever — no legislative protest — no 
Executive remonstrance — from Maryland, can stay the strife of 
contending squadrons. A deputation from the Peace Society 
would have been as effectual in arresting a charge at Solfeiino. 
If, then, the "neutrality" of the Governor means anything, 
(speaking with all respect,) it must mean a neutrality armed and 
resolute — prepared to assert its policy, and able to vindicate it on 
the field. Otherwise it would be nothing, and would come to 
nothing. It would only irritate both parlies, and slay the arm of 
neither. 



16 - 

And yet although this is the result and the only practical result 
of the recoinmendation of the Message, it is difficult to reconcile 
such a conclusion with the other views which the Governor 
:MUiounces. Upon the authority of "our most learned and intelli- 
gent citizens." he admits the right of the Government to trans- 
])ort its troops across our soil. He recognizes the unbroken rela- 
tions and the continuing loyalty of Maryland to the Union. He 
does not impeach the constitutionaltty of the action of the Federal 
authorities. His protests against the landing of the troops, and 
the seizure of the railroad at Annapolis, are based upon no denial 
of the right. They amount to remonstrance and advice, but to 
nothing more. 

His theory is, and he has always steadfastly maintained it, 
that nothing has occurred to alter the reciprocal rights and obli- 
gations of this State and the General Government. The Consti- 
tution he believes is still over both, and the old bonds still unite 
them together. If all this be true, then the State of Maryland 
can hold no neutrality when the Union is at war. She is part of 
the Union; at war when it wars; at peace when it is peaceful. 
She "takes sides" against it the instant that she fails to take 
sides with it. Neutrality, in such a case, is nullificatien pure and 
simple, and an armed neutrality is merely rebellion, and not union 
or peace. The position of His Excellency in the premises is, 
therefore, in the judgment of the Committee, wholly untenable, 
and it is not surprising that it should have placed him at so 
obvious a disadvantage, in the correspondence which he has fur- 
iiished the House between himself and the astute officers of the 
Government. Differing from the Governor in opinion as to the 
course and rights of the Federal authorities, to the wide extent 
herein before indicated, the Committee have no hesitation in as- 
serting and maintaining the right of the State, and its duty, to 
protest against the unconstitutional action of the Administration, 
and refuse obedience to its unconstitutional demands. Recogniz- 
ing, however, to the same extent as the Governor, that Maryland 
is still a State of the Union, the Committee cannot counsel this 
Honorable Body, or the people whom it represents, to assume, 
under the guise of "neutrality," a hostile relation to the Govern- 
ment, or attempt, by any policy whatever, to "force" it from the 
position in which it is entrenched. If no better argument existed 
against such a project, a sufficient one would be found in its 
hopeless futility. 

The present — and the only possible present attitude of the 
Stale towards the Federal Government is, in the judgment of the 
Committee, an attitude of submission — voluntary and cheerful 
submission on the part of those who can persuade themselves that 
the Constitution remains inviolate and the Union unbroken, or 
that the Union can survive the Constitution — unwilling and gall- 
ing submission on the part of those who think and feel differently; 
but still, peaceful submission upon both sides. It is not for the 



It 

Committee to ignore this state of things, because of the humilia- 
tion which comes with it. They fee! it their duty to confess the 
inexorable logic of facts, and leave the future to be shaped by the 
people of Maryland , to whom, exclusively, that prerogative be- 
longs, and who, doubtless, will exercise it in their own way and 
at their own good time. 

This expression of the views of your Committee, at so much 
necessary length, leaves very obvious the recommendations which 
they ask leave to report, upon the two leading subjects submitted 
to their deliberation: tht calling of a Sovereign Convention of the 
people, and the re-organizalion and arming of the militia of the 
State. 

At the time when the Legislature was called together, thei'e 
was certainly but little difference of opinion among its members, 
of all parties, as to the propriety of speedily adopting measures 
to secure both the objects referred to. Since that time, the rapid 
and extraordinary development of events, and of the warlike pur- 
poses ot the Administration; the concentration of large bodies of 
troops in our midst and upon oui borders, and the actual and 
threatened military occupation of the State, have naturally enough 
produced great changes of opinion and feeling among our citizens. 
The members of the Committee, judging from their own corres- 
pondence and that of their fellow memberi/, of all shades of opinion, 
as well as from the memorials and other expressions of the pub- 
lic will, which have reached the House, have no hesitation in 
expressing their belief, that there is an almost unanimous feeling 
in the State against calling a Convention at the present time. 
The reasons for this conclusion are doubtless various, in different 
portions of the State, and the opinions of individuals as to the 
probable result of the deliberations of a Convention, at this mo- 
ment, are of course very wide apart. To the Committee, the 
single fact of the military occupation of our soil by the Northern 
troops in the service of the Government, against the wishes of 
our people, and the solemn protest of the State Executive, is a 
sufficient and conclusive reason for postponing the subject, to a 
period w'hen the Federal ban shall be no longer upon us. It does 
not become the dignity of the State of Maryland to attempt the 
performance of an act of sovereignty, absolute or qualified, at a 
moment when not only her sovereignty but her Federal equality 
is subordinated to the law of the drum-head. No election, held 
at such a time, and with such surroundings, could by possibility 
be fair or free. No result which could be reached by it would 
command the confidence or secure the willing obedience of the 
people. The Committee therefore feel it their duty to recommend 
the postponement of the subject for the present. 

For reasons almost identical, the Committee take leave to 

report against the arming of the State, and the organization of 

our military defences at this time. If the holding of a Sovereign 

Convention were not regarded as a hostile movement by the Fed- 

3 



IS 

era! Government, the re-establishment of the military force of the 
State, in a condition of present efficiency, certainly would be, 
however unjustly. It avails nothing to say thai the arming and 
organization of a suitable militia, are declared by the Constitu- 
tion of the United States to be "necessary to the security of a free 
State," and therefore especially guaranteed to us as peaceful and 
fundamental rights. The Constitution is silenced by the bayonets 
which surround us, and it is not worth while for us to fancy our- 
selves beneath its segis. It would be criminal as well as foolish 
for us to shut our eyes to the fact that we will not be permitted 
to organize and arm our citizens, let our rights and the Constitu- 
tion be what they may. The interview of our Commissioners 
with the President sets that point at rest. It is not easy for free 
men to realize such a state of things; but it is not our fault that 
we are helpless, nor our shame that our helplessness is abused. 

The Committee respectfully recommend that no action betaken 
towards the re-organization ot the militia at this time, or the doing 
of any act which might be construed into hostility to the Govern- 
ment, and that, if any purchase of arms be indispensable, it be 
confined, at the farthest, to such reasonable quantity as may 
be manufactured in our own State, for local purposes, and 
may aid in the equipment of the militia, when a plan for their 
proper enrollment and distribution shall be matured at some future 
day. The purchase of such a quantity can give no just ground 
for complaint in any quarter, as the slightest inquiry will show 
that the total disuse of the militia system, for many years past 
has left us almost wholly defenceless in many parts of the State, 
and renders some such arrangement indispen^ble as a measure 
of domestic police. 

The Committee regard it as within their province further to 
suggest to this Honorable Body the propriety of adjourning over 
to some named day, as soon as its present and pressing duties 
arc discharged. In their opinion, the exigencies of the present 
crisis do not permit a final adjournment, with any proper regard 
to the responsibilities and dangers which may, at any moment, 
be precipitated on the State. 

Finally, the Committee respectfully submit to the House the 
following resolutions, and pray to be discharged from the further 
consideration of the matters before them. 

S. T. WALLIS, 

J. H. GORDON, 

G. W. GOLDSBOROUGH, 

JAMES T. BRISCOE, 

BARNES COMPTON. 



19 

Whereas, In the judj::raent of the General Assembly of Mary- 
land, the war now waged by the Government of the United States 
upon the people of the Confederate Slates, i.s unconstitutional in 
its origin, purposes and conduct; repugnant to civilization and 
sound })olicy ; subversive of the free principles upon which the 
Federal Union was founded, and certain to result in the hopeless 
and bloody overtlirow of our existing institutions ; and, 

Whereas, The people of Maryland, while recognizing the 
obligation of iheir State, as a member of the Union, to submit in 
good faith to the exercise of all the legal and constitutional powers 
of the General Government, and to join as one man in fighting 
its authorized battles, do reverence, nevertheless, the great Ame- 
rican principle of self-government, and sympathize deeply with 
iheir Southern brethern in their noble and manly determination to 
uphold and defend the same; and. 

Whereas, Not merely on their own account and to turn away 
from their own soil the calamities of civil war, but for the blessed 
sake of humanity, and to avoid the wanton shedding of fraternal 
blood, in a miserable contest which can bring nothing with it 
but sorrow, shame and desolation, the people of Maryland are 
enlisted, with their whole hearts, on the side of reconciliation 
and peace : now, therefore, it is hereby 

Resolved by the General Assembly of Maryland, That the State 
of Maryland owes it to her own self-respect and her respect for 
the Constitution, not less than to her deepest and most honorable 
sympathies, to register this, her solemn protest, against the war 
which the Federal Government has declared upon the Confeder- 
ate States of the South, and our sister and neighbor Virginia, 
and to announce her resolute determination to have no part or 
lot, directly or indirectly, in its prosecution. 

Resolved, That the Slate of Maryland earnestly and anxiously 
desires the restoration of peace between the belligerent sections 
of the country, and the President, authorities, and people of the 
Confederate Stales, having, over and over again, officially and 
unofficially, declared that they seek only peace and self-defence, 
and to be let alone, and that they are willing to throw down the 
sword, the instant that the sword now drawn against them shall 
be sheathed, the Senators and Delegates of Maryland do beseech 
and implore the President of the United Stales to accept the 
olive branch which is thus held out to him; and in the name of 
God and humanity, to cease this unholy and most wretched and 
unprohlable strife, at least until the assembling of Congress in 
Washington shall have given time for the prevalence of color 
and better counsels. 

Resolved, That the Slate of Maryland desires the peaceful and 
immediate recognition of the independence of the Confederate 
Stales, and hereby gives her cordial assent thereunto, as a mem- 
ber of the Union : entertaining the profound conviction that the 
willing return of the Southern people to their former Federal re- 



\ 



20 

lations is a thing beyond hope, and that the attempt to coerce them 
will only add slaughter and hate to impossibility. 

Resolved, That the present military occupation of Maryland, 
being for the purposes^ in the opinion of this Legislature, in flagrant 
violation of the Constitution, the General Assembly of the State, 
in the name of her people, does hereby protest against the same, 
and against the oppresive restrictions and illegalities with which 
it is attended ; calling upon all good citizens, at the same time, 
in the most earnest and authoritative manner, to abstain from all 
violent and unlawful interference, of every sort, wilh the troops 
in transit through our territory, or quartered among us, and 
patiently and peacefully to leave to time and reason the ultimate 
and certain re-establishment and vindication of the right. 

Resolved, That under existing circumstances, it is inexpedient 
to call a Sovereign Convention of the State at this time, or to 
take any measure for the immediate organization or arming of 
the militia. 



SENATE AMENDMENTS. 

u^nd be it further Resolved, That a Committee be appointed to 
consist of four member of the Senate and four members of the 
House of Delegates, four of which Committee, (to be selected of 
themselves,) shall as early as possible, wait on the President of 
the United States at Washington, and the other four of said 
Committee shall wait on the President fof the Southern Con- 
federacy, for the purpose of laying the foregoiug resolutions before 
them ; and that said Committee be, and is hereby especially in- 
structed to obtain, if possible, a general cessation of hostilities, 
now impending, until the meeting of Congress in July next, in 
order that said 13ody may, if possible, arrange for an adjustment 
of existing troubles by means of negotiation, rather than the 
sword. 

Resolved, That said Committee consist of Messrs. Brooke, 

Yellott, McKaig, and Lynch, of the Senate, and Messrs. •- . 

, and , of the House of Delegates- 

Resolved, That said Committee be requested to report, if prac- 
ticable, to the General Assembly, on the 5th day of June next. 



REPORT 

OF THE 

COMMITTEE OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 

APPOINTED TO WAIT ON THE 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The undersigned, a portion of the Coramittee appointed by the 
Legislature to present and enforce its Resolutions to Presidents 
Lincoln and Davis, beg leave to report — 

That the manifest purpose of those resolutions was, in the 
opinion of your Committee, to secure, if possible, through the in- 
strumentality of Maryland, peace to our distracted country; and, 
if failing in that, then a cessation of hostilities on the part of the 
armies of the Federal and Confederated troops, until Congress 
should express its opinion on the subjects which now agitate the 
people. These purposes being defeated by the movement of the 
Federal troops on Virginia, and an active commencement of hos- 
tilities, we have considered our mission as ended, and, therefore, 
have not felt authorized, on the part of the Sovereign State of 
Maryland, to present a request which has in advance been repu- 
diated. 

The dignity of the State, as well as self-respect, seemed to 
demand this of us. 

All of which is respectfully submitted, 

JNO, B, BROOKE, 
G. W. GOLDSBOROUGH, 
GEO. H. MORGAN, 
BARNES COMPTON. 



COMMITTEE OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 

APrOINTED TO AVAIT ON THE 

PRESIDENT OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. 



To the Honorable, 

The Senate and House of Delegates of Maryland: 

The undersigned, being that portion of the Joint Conimittee 
selected to proceed to Montgomery, Alabama, and to submit for 
the consideration of the President and Cabinet of the Confederate 
States of America the resolutions as passed by the Legislature of 
the State of Maryland, beg leave most respectfully to report — 

That your Committee, in performance of their mission, pro- 
ceeded to Montgomery, Alabama, and were there received by 
the President of the Confederate Grovernment, a majority of his 
Cabinet being present, with a frank cordiality and that considera- 
tion due to the representatives of the sovereign State of Maryland. 
In answer to the resolutions thus presented, the President of the 
Confederate States caused to be delivered to your Committee the 
paper accompanying and made part of this report. 

Believing that any expression of opinion relative to the object 
your Honorable Bodies wished to accomplish, or to the probable 
final result of the fratricidal and sectional war which is now being 
inflicted upon the country, would be transcending the limits of 
the power entrusted to your Committee, your Committee therefore 
content themselves with simply asking the attention of your Hon- 
orable Bodies to the answer of President Davis to the resolutions 
thus laid before the Confederate Government. 

THOMAS J. McKAIG, 
COLEMAN YELLOTT, 
CHARLES A. HARDING. 



r 



\ 



/* 



LETTER pF PRESIDENT DAYIS. 



,^ Montgomery, 25th May, 1861. 

GentlcrtcmJ 

1 receive with sincere pleasure the assurance that the State of 
Maryland sympathises with the people of these States in their 
determined vindication of the right of self-government, and that 
the people of Maryland "are enlisted with their whole hearts on 
the side of reconciliation and peace." The people of these Con- 
federate States, notwithstanding their separation from their late 
sister, have not ceased to feel a deep solicitude in her welfare, 
and to hope that, at no distant day, a State whose people, habits 
and institutions are so closely relj^ed and assimilated with theirs, 
will seek to unite her fate and fortunes with those of this Confed- 
eracy. 

The Government of tiie Confederate States receive with respect 
the suggestion of the State of Maryland, that there should be "a 
general cessation of hostilities now impending, until the meeting 
of Congress in July next, in order that said body may, if pos- 
sible, arrange for an adjustment of existing troubles, by means of 
negotiation, rather than the sword," but is at a loss how to reply, 
without a repetition of the language it has used on every possible 
occasion that has presented itself, since the establishment of its 
independence. In deference to the Slate of Maryland, however, 
it again asserts, in the most emphatic terms, that its sincere and 
earnest desire is for peace; that whilst the Government would 
readily entertain any proposition from the Government of the 
United States tending lo a peaceful solution of the pending diffi- 
culties, the recent attempts of this Government to enter into 
negotiations with that of the United States, were attended with 



V 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



24 

012 026 306 

Results which forbid any renewal of proposals from it to that Gov- 
ernment. 

If any further assurance of the desire of this Government for 
peace were necessary, it would be sufficient to observe that, being 
formed of a confederation of sovereign States, ench acting and 
deciding for itsell, the right of every other sovei .^n ytate to the 

same self-action and self-government is necessarily acknowledged. .^ 

Hence, conquests of other States are wholly iPoousistent with the 
fundamental/ principles, and subversive of thp, \ery organization .,«—-■>- 
of this Goverr^rpent. Its policy can? <■ but be peace -peac- v/ith 
all nations and ]jeople. 



Very respectfully, 



JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



Messrs. McKaig, Yellott and Harding, Committee of Maryland 
Legislature. 



^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





012 026 306 7 



